Hawthorne High School students and staff said goodbye to their principal, Barry Cohen, on Monday, April 28, 2014, in a surprise assembly during lunch.

HHS senior Chris Siracusa, one of the student organizers of the event, opened the assembly with a dedication speech that honored Cohen and his time at HHS. He then introduced a video that was created by students and Enrico Cupillari, HHS network administrator.

The video, which was in a slideshow format, showed many members of the faculty and student body expressing their thoughts about Cohen. The pictures depicted a word each person thought described Cohen best. Some of the words included: inspirational, hardworking, selfless, phenomenal and irreplaceable.

When Siracusa was asked about the video, he said, “Mr. Cohen and I had a really good relationship. I presented my idea to Mr. Sforza and we decided to hold an assembly for him. [I] felt it was needed because of how much he’s done [for HHS].”

HHS math teacher Cheryl Smith, who was featured in the video, commented on the assembly, saying, “It was invigorating. It was an emotion-packed display that [brought many to] tears.”

Junior and senior students filled the auditorium for the assembly, while freshmen and sophomore students watched the video from the various television screens in the school cafeterias and Library Media Center. Many students and staff members wore special tee-shirts made for the occasion that said, “Keep Calm & Cohen On.”

This surprise assembly gave everyone at Hawthorne High School a chance to express their gratitude and admiration for Cohen, as well as their sorrow of his retirement. The obvious message here is that Cohen will be greatly missed.